The subject application relates to combining promotional material with transactional material at a print facility and providing a digitally signed invoice to a marketing agency or other vendor while preserving consumer privacy. While the systems and methods described herein relate to promotional material printing applications, it will be appreciated that the described techniques may find application in other printing systems, other marketing applications, for example such as those used for on-line targeted marketing, and/or other privacy protection systems.
Print facilities print promotional materials based on a person's transaction information and charge marketing agencies based on the amount of promotional material printed without disclosing which promotional material has been printed on a person's transaction statement, in order to comply with privacy regulations. One problem with conventional systems is that there is no way to verify that the correct amount of promotional material has been printed for a person as claimed by the print facility. Neither is there a method to verify the number of persons receiving the various promotional materials.
Personalization is the process of gathering personal information that enables a firm to target products or services to match a customer's tastes. The customer is often an unknowing participant whose preferences are revealed through behavioral history. The Internet allows firms to engage in this behavioral history tracking activity by linking customer behavior with various data mining tools and behavioral models. One example of a firm engaging in this activity is the online retailer Amazon, which uses purchasing history, especially for items such as books and music, to offer recommendations, coupons, and bundles to customers.
As a result of both the Internet's potential for personalization, and activities by Amazon and others, recent research on information privacy has concluded that there are individuals concerned about information privacy. There appears to be a tripartite segmentation of individuals: fundamentalists who are extremely concerned about the uses of personal information, and resistant to any further privacy erosion; an unconcerned group who do not consider privacy issues; and a group of pragmatists, typically the bulk of the survey respondents, who have some concerns about privacy but are willing to sacrifice personal information if there are tangible benefits.
Other studies have found that beliefs about privacy and trustworthiness have a significant effect on purchasing intentions. The more an individual believes in information privacy, the more negative an attitude is toward Internet purchasing.
Other approaches to document integrity verification relate to ensuring that a document is not missing pages, does not contain undesired duplicate images or pages, etc., but do provide verification information to ensure that consumer information is protected in accordance with privacy regulations while providing a vendor with increased assurance that invoices and billing statements are accurate. Accordingly, there is an unmet need for systems and/or methods that facilitate overcoming the aforementioned deficiencies.